Ministry of Power, Government of India established CISMHE as an R&D Centre in power studies in environment in recognition of its excellent past performance-->

The Centre's area of studies covers diverse geographical regions extending from the Bay of Bengal to the Himalayan mountains, and from northeast Himalaya to Nilgiri hills -->

The Centre for Inter-disciplinary Studies of Mountain & Hill Environment (CISMHE) was set up under the Board of Inter-disciplinary Programmes of University of Delhi in January 1990 with Dr. Virendra Kumar as its Founding Director. The objective of the Centre was to undertake location specific studies on different issues related to environment and sustainable development. The concept of the Centre revolves around the idea that the upland areas play a crucial role in the production and regeneration of natural resources like fresh water, forests, besides sustaining a rich genetic diversity of plant and animal life. These natural resources have increasingly witnessed ecological stress and as a result there have been both short- and long-term implications on the resource generation capability and the ecological equilibrium of these ecosystems. Given CISMHE's objectives, an elaborate research programme has been initiated with the help of grants from Government and public sector undertakings.